


Wading Through Tomorrow (!ON HIATUS!)

by jaspuffin



Category: John Mulaney - Fandom, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live RPF, US Comedians RPF
Genre: A little comedy in the mix as well idk, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Anna is a fuckin badass, Emotional Shit, Everyone Needs A Hug, Father Figures, Friendship, Gen, Holiday Season, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Isolation, John is a Good Friend, John is a sucker for chamber pop, Lotsa weed, More tags to be added, On Hiatus, Pete is in a bad place, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Rating May Change, Recovery, Road Trips, Short Chapters, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaspuffin/pseuds/jaspuffin
Summary: Taking place right after Pete's engagement gets broken off, he takes time off from his problems on a runaway-style road trip with John Mulaney.





	1. Yellow Ledbetter

_I'm okay. I quit drugs and am happy and sober for the first time in eight years. It wasn’t easy, but I got a great girl, great friends and I consider myself a lucky man. I'll always be here for you, I promise. Remember to never give up hope because sometimes that's all we got. I appreciate all your love and support. It's nice to be back in action._

Sure enough that's what the letter read.

"I mean it's stupidly contradictory to... well," John waved the paper around from behind the glass in the conjugal room. "This."

Pete Davidson had been detained with a DUI charge for three days now, something that had hadn't occurred in months. The few months since he sent that letter about his recovery to John, anyway.

He was disappointed in himself. Binge drinking his way into custody clearly wasn't the ideal way to get over Ariana. At least that's what Mulaney says, and Mulaney knows it all. Everything about everybody, what a damn great guy!

What came to Pete as a shocker was the fact that this dressed-in-blue, trash talking comedian would be so willing to be his friend. Even if, you know, half the time ‘friend’ meant bail money. He was like a therapist too, always giving advice that was remarkably less questionable than the thoughts Pete came up with himself.

“Man, I'm sorry. Okay? That why you're here? An apology to get this over and done with, then you bail me out? Or do you want me to feel some shame, huh?”

“You know why I brought this letter along?” John asked, slyly avoiding the questions.

Pete shrugged indifferently, leaning in the shaky plastic chair they'd set out. He'd secretly wished for a mute button to block out John's pep talking to no avail.

“We've been friends for a couple years, and this,” John held the letter up. “This reassurance is significant to me. Some trust went into this, I can feel it. What happened?”

“Pfft, fuck me if I know.”

John raised an eyebrow, looking like how Pete envisioned Charles W. Mulaney's permanent stance.

Pete's eyes rolled down to where he fidgeted with his hoodie’s straps and sighed, “Look, I'm obviously going through things. You know, I know, everyone- jeez, I was gonna get married, but stuff got in the way, man. Changes. Big ones. And I'm fragile, I guess-”

“Pete, listen,” John stopped, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “You're not fragile, please stop saying that. You're a human being, and emotion is just part of your coding, okay? You've been sober for the longest time, that's proof of strength.”

Strength. Pete sniggered at the word.

“Thanks for the, uh, sentiment, but you're not the one with the live-in personality disorder.”

John's hopeless puppy eyes came back, staring the cynic right in the soul. “And you think I don't recognise it? That I don't try, as a friend, to cater to it? I don't know what to do with you, Davidson. I- I, I try to give support but that's gone out the window. The guy in this letter isn't the one I'm talking to right now,” he stuttered, barely keeping his cool. “Last thing I'll say; find another outlet.”

The suggestion went through Pete’s head like a knife. He didn't want this, did he? Any high besides pot giving him nightmarish impulses and rages? Spending days and nights at a time wallowing in the isolation of the detention center he was unfortunately familiar with? Surely a safe loophole for this situation existed.

He gave up the substances once. Best feeling he'd had in years, honestly. He'd been through breakups before too. Nasty ones. But he was there, and there was now, and now was the present moment, and the present moment was where he was.

He didn't want to stay in the cell.

As John slumped up to leave, letter in hand, Pete jumped to his feet and stopped him. “John, wait.”

He stopped in his tracks and looked back with a knowing smirk.

“Can you bail me out, if I swear this is the last time you'd ever need to do this?”

 


	2. Lonely Man of Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something familiar urges Pete to get himself together (+ John swears in front of a kid and panics)

Trying hard not to undermine Pete's all time low, John sat in the lobby of the Queens Police Department, his earphones at top volume, and contemplated his batshit morning with a pinch of salt. That pinch of salt being that he was still with Anna (thank God, that woman is a lifesaver), that he hasn't sunk into an abysmal depression, and that nothing visible in his life would lead to a consequential drunk driving charge--

_Crap, I'm doing it again. Stop being such a narcissistic cunt, Mulaney. You know what? I'm going to make my mind shut up and just listen to Sufjan fuckin' Stevens._

While trying to be completely focused on the music, his morning was fairly batshit in that he'd bumped foreheads with at least three people in the last four hours, he poured tepid water into orange juice and never spat anything out faster, and nearly left home with the shower running. 

So, hey, what's he got to show off? 

Despite both his parents being high class lawyers and acting like one to Pete with all the trouble he's gotten into, John has only the most basic of concepts of how these bonds work. Do you give them the money and the fuzz lets you out under conditions? Do you stay in some court for hours and ramble on about how the person you're defending has serious emotional trauma, then pay money for the sake of money? Eh, even if he knew this at some point he probably discarded the thought. 

And while John’s not a _complete_ idiot, you could give him a multiple choice question with those as the options and he'll manage to get it wrong either way. 

As thoughts rolled by on his mental conveyor belt, one thing was kept to the side:

 _Maybe,_ a thought popped into John's mind. _Maybe Pete was right, about the state he's in and this detention and this being, well, good for him. Accidental rehab without the rehab. Yeah. That makes sense._

Ten odd minutes later, Pete stepped out of the interrogation office to greet John, eyes closed while humming the depressing phrases of _Lonely Man of Winter_ to himself while a mother next to him was trying to calm her incessantly crying two year old down. Wait, maybe it was a five year old. Six? What did Pete know about kids, anyway? It's not like he remembers that part of his life, nor does he have the desire to do so. 

Now back to Pete trying to get the dumbass’ attention. 

“John.”

No response. 

“John, buddy?”

“ _...looonely driiive to Denver…_ ”

Pete shook the guy by his shoulder. “Dammit, Mulaney, wake up.”

That did the trick. 

“Ah! Fuck, Pete sorry-” he turned to the mother, “Awh, shit- I mean, sorry, ma'am, did I cuss? Sorry, oh shit- ugh, I should leave.”

Pete tried not to chuckle at John's off-putting awkward stumbling. “C’mon, man. Officer called for you.”

Mulaney got up and tucked his phone into his shirt pocket, still hearing faint mandolin from the speakers. 

“Again, s- sorry,” he apologised to the woman, frantically waffling his hands around. He left for the office with Pete. 

“Well, there's the opening for your next comedy special. Want me to write it down?’ Pete teased, holding the door open and beckoning a passive aggressive John inside the office. 

“Hilarious.”

_________________________________________________

Pete went in with a hungover driving experience and left with ten months’ licence suspension. An eye for an eye - except he can't decide which eye affects him worse.

True, the drunk period was, as Mulaney puts it, a terrible response to natural emotion, but COME ON. There are far worse ways he could've eaten his emotions away, right? Right?

...right.

One thing lead to another and he'd been booked into a luxury rehabilitation center in New Jersey in a week for thirty five days, against his will, and that's all he had to say about that. 

To make a saga short, he can't drive for nearly a year and there's nothing much to do in the meantime. The hard hitting blows of the city is sure to get to him sooner or later, though not even edging on the pressure from Saturday Night Live nearly every goddamn weekend.

Of course he loves the show, his closest friends are based there for Christ's sakes. But for how long? 

His apartment is once again a bachelor settlement, sparse as hell but he just calls it minimalist. John offered to have Pete stay in a spare room for a few nights to get his mind together, which he refused out of a mix of shame and politeness. He'd better sort this shit out himself.

10pm rolls around, and Pete finds himself scanning his letter over and over, just to try to recognise the person who wrote it, to reconnect with the perfectly normal state of mind he was in. John gave it to him for a while, just as a small reminder. To himself, from himself.

He's got the radio on too, the music just passing through his ears as he struggled finding peace with himself. He couldn't drown the thoughts with drinks since Mulaney, an ex alcoholic himself, came around earlier to get rid of every drop of whiskey in the house. Grand. 

A song passes another until a familiar tune comes through; melancholy crooning over a transcendental folk track? Sufjan Stevens is coming to town, baby. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell if this story is progressing too quickly or not, but I try to keep every chapter at a reasonable length. I was listening to Sufjan while writing this, so please excuse the references!


	3. Five Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete comes out of isolation and lowkey manipulates John.

_Hi, Pete. It's Amy from Union City Rehab. Do you have a minute to talk?_

A minute? What kind of hyperbolic bullcrap is this? Pete rejected the text just like he'd done to the previous one. And the one before that.

And the 10 other messages sent by the pseudo-robotic councillor in the past week. God, she's a nuisance. 

Speaking of which, his recent encounters with people, all of which were mostly unwanted, were underwhelming to say the very least. He fled from social media as a whole two weeks prior to this due to harassment, and he hates mentioning those threats he publicised. 

Best to keep away from all the attention, he figured. 

Not only has he been ignoring the councillor; his mom, Lorne, and fans who somehow got hold of his private number tried to reach. All he can conclude is that people aren't exactly the dynamite of his world at the moment.

Sure enough he made a liberal exception for Mulaney, since he owes the guy big time. John desperately attempted to drag Pete out of the isolation, to which Pete just reassured things he probably isn't really assured about himself. 

An idea strung onto Pete the night upon returning from the police station, and he prayed that Mulaney wouldn't act a liability to it. He called John over to discuss it and, well, convince him to join. 

Another oh-boy-ain't-life-swell™ type event in the period since the arrest had been the disconcerting amount of Sufjan Stevens records Pete played over and over again as a coping mechanism. 

Is arty folk a drug? 

He could've written an essay on the question, John would've read it, and come up with a dry one liner. He's like that. 

 _Death With Dignity_ spoke to him, like a ghost of a person he loved came down for comfort, which is an oddly sentimental thought for someone like himself. A polar opposite of the letter, and he still sensed a kindling connection between the music and what he wrote. He wept to it, day by day, brooding alone in the apartment. It's not that he's much of a sensitive soul, but the power of a few meaningful lines put to music 

And the funny thing to him was that John, the archetypal corny fifties game show host character, would listen to this morbid stuff. Not just listening either, but actively enjoying it. 

The irony which John paraded around like a crown made Pete feel grateful for having the guy in his life. 

_Knock knock._

Speak of the devil. 

“You want the letter back? It's on the coffee ta-” 

John muted him with a hug. Y’know, that familiar hug that you don't tear away from because it feels nice and comforting but it's still kinda weird and unexpected? That hug. 

Incapable of doing much else besides grappling back, Pete stood in the doorway and had a moment of confusion in his own rights - not the hug, he understood it, but should he hug back? Torn between obligation and coyness he shuffled his hands onto John's shoulders. 

“Good to see you too, man.”

John let go and smirked. “You looked like you needed it. Why’d you call?”

 

_________________________________________________

 

“Hold on, back up, back up,” John stuttered with a coffee cup in his hands. “You haven't spoken to anybody for how long?”

“Eh, five days, give or take?”

Pete came across as disturbingly indifferent. They both understood the natural motives of an introvert, but this pushes it. 

“Christ, Pete.”

“What? You don't think alone time is healthy for me? A problematic breakup victim with touchy personal issues?”

John set down his cup. “Again, you're not problematic, and this is what you call alone time? Please tell me this is almost over for you. You need to move along, Pete. Nothing in the world is stopping for you.”

Skimming past the fair pointers, Pete went on a tangent. “You ever wanted to get away for a while?”

Puzzled, John responded, “You mean like a holiday? I'm not a crusty hermit with zero travel experience if that's what you're asking.”

“You could call it that,” Pete considered. “But I mean, like a spontaneous trip to nowhere where you just… drop it. Everything. Take a shit ton of clothes and hit the road for a few weeks.”

“A road trip?”

“A road trip.”

John stared into the musky brown of the coffee, then at Pete's orange hoodie, then back at the coffee. 

Pete leaned forward a little to catch John's eyes with his own. “You see where I'm going with this, right?”

Sipping at his drink, Mulaney bobbed his head lightly as if to concur. “I'm glad you're an optimist again. Nice to have you back, kid.”

“Oh my **_G_** ** _ooood_** ,” Pete groaned.

John defensively sat upright, “Pete, what else do you want me to say? ‘Oh! That's a fucking great plan, Mr. License Suspension! Why don't I just start abusing cigarettes again, then we both fuck up our lives?’”

This prompted a mutter.

“You could drive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm estimating that the entire story will be around 20 chapters in total, so apologies if this makes for an unnecessarily lengthy development. Thanks again for reading! :) 
> 
> (feel free to add prompts and the like)


	4. Holidays, Nina Simone, and Paranoia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna is freaking great at persuading John, especially when it comes to supporting Pete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kinda set around Christmas time (like maybe a generic date close to the 25th)

"You should go with him."

John was back at home after his rendezvous which, initially, was meant to leave him feeling accomplished but took a free falling turn of events. He felt like it was along the lines of blackmail, but what's Pete baiting him with? 

He described what Pete had said as best he could to his wife, making the idea seem worse the more he heard himself talk. Maybe he just worded it badly.

Anna, however, seemed on board with it. She's a bona fide spontaneous woman, so what did John expect her to think of an aimless getaway? Though, all she wanted from it is for John to at least spend the holidays at home. 

By 'holidays', she meant holidays: plural. A sentence with A Jew and A Catholic sounds like the start of a joke, but to the Mulaney-Tendlers it was just December. Kind of like a mix between Kwanzaa and Christmas that's tough to describe to family members. 

"Anna, come on, we're both so busy, you too. Petunia’s a lot of work herself, I don't want to dump her on you. You've got the textile business going on, I don't-” 

“I have it under control, John,” she replied blankly, typing away at her computer. “It's not about me or you, y’know. There's a guy you're close to, with big, intimidating things on his mind, and he comes to you as someone to look up to. What do you do?”

“Oh, for the love of- a ten months’ ban from driving and he wants to go on a road trip. The road, Anna! With cars!"

“I know what a road is. And why don't you just drive? Pete suggested it himself, didn't he?”

“Of course, of course, but the thing is-”

She silences him without looking up from her laptop, "John, chill, please, you sound more paranoid than usual. It's gonna cause you problems sooner or later.”

“Gee, love the reassurance.” 

“Are you afraid of helping Pete?"

John chuckled sheepishly, “Heh, what? Afraid?”

“The kid needs this. You're like a dad to him, you know that.” 

Touché, Tendler.

The awful thing is that Pete's father had been gone for seventeen years or so, not that he likes bringing it up. He didn't get that paternal influence during his teenage years, which Pete supposes is one of the attributing issues to the state he's in now. 

Clamber over time to the present day, and John might just be the person who fills that gap. They're almost nothing alike, besides both of them being comic contemporaries and, if this is the right word, friends. 

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Anna smiled at him, “You know how stubborn the guy is, why not get him out of the shell? Don't think of it as you going above and beyond to do your version of therapy, more like making someone's life worthwhile.”

“You really think I'm the person to help him?”

She raised an eyebrow sarcastically, “Mm hm? Well, he does, anyway.”

Reaching for his phone, John rolled his eyes. 

He stepped into the kitchen for a minute. By this time, Petunia had curled up on his couch spot and proved John's role as an absolute pushover. Smartass. 

He called Anna into the room, sounding proud. 

“How would you feel about having Davidson around for a holiday dinner?”

 

_____________________________________________

 

_Ring._

“Pete, buddy! We're glad you made it!” John opened up to him immediately, patting him on the back. 

“Oh, thanks,” Pete said like it was the first time someone was pleased with his presence. He peered around the entrance of the apartment, looking for the coat hanger and, uh, definitely not for the bathroom in case of wanting to escape human interaction. 

Luckily enough there were no other guests; just a couple and their dog. Sweet. 

Since it was the season of giving, he brought a present along with the hopes that it wasn't too mediocre. The air was filled with the scent of fresh coffee, and was that Nina Simone on the radio? 

The comfort was there alright, John called up earlier that week and inadvertently offered comfort, and Pete wasn't disappointed in the least bit. 

Petunia came tripping onto his feet, her tail wagging like a creature of its own as he bent down to scratch her behind the ears. 

He wandered into the living room, where Annamarie was lighting some candles. 

“Hi, Pete, you doing okay?”

“Uh, yeah, better now I'm here, thanks for asking. This place looks,” he paused, noticing the array of miscellaneous decorations that shouldn't go together but clearly do, just standing honourably on the mantelpiece and over the walls. “Looks amazing, really.”

John walked over and put his hand on his wife's shoulder. “Oh, it's nothing. Anna does a great job at getting clashing objects to cooperate, though.”

She kissed his cheek and gushed, “Thanks, hon. Pete, can I get you anything to drink? Iced tea? Coffee?”

“Water’s fine, thanks.”

 

 


	5. Lift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete is reminded of what it feels like to be loved.  
> (why am I so bad at chapter summaries lmao, the chapter title comes from a radiohead song bc originality)

Anna technically answered for John when the question came up. He'd stumble over vague points as to why he should and shouldn't go, leaving both of the other people in the room completely confused. John absolutely saw the fun in the idea (come on, the guy sees the fun in anything) but still felt it was a little drastic. Tendler made sure that her husband's mind would be made up by Saturday night after the show, that he'd wait for Davidson outside the studio to discuss it over a croissant or something. 

 _Eh, good enough,_ Pete supposed. 

That was that on that for the night, though. Not to undermine everything else that they weaved into conversational mishmash - including the odd clients that occasionally booked with Anna's makeup facilities (and holy hell, did this give Pete some characters to develop), and the strange fascination with uses for hot glue John had unearthed while skimming through the tacky DIY side of YouTube.

They laughed and ate and had lazy jazz droning in the background, and the feeling of home spread through Pete's veins by the second. Even up to when he left the house, giving them each a heartfelt hug and feeling good in doing so, he could see new horizons coming into reach. Mulaney turned out to be right - his idea of alone time caused more problems than. Of course, none of this emotional philosophy popped up into their discussions. God, he knew Anna was a fantastic person but if only he'd realised how pleasant a conversation she could hold, he’d have spoken with her sooner. 

The trouble of just purely existing in the background vanished with the presence of the Mulaney-Tendlers; their coffee stained rug matching the coffee stained table, just like their coffee stained personalities fit like a jigsaw. How plain some of the most complacent people can come across to the naked eye is incredible. 

Their relationship was a lingering thought right at the back of his mind during the bus ride home through the suburbs. This two dimensional cardboard box of a man at the side of a Margaret Atwood protagonist, and yet they clearly have no problems with each other. 

It was refreshing. 

So how come Pete's relationships always feel like he's dropping the same coffee jar on himself over and over again, but his lovers get away stain free? Realistically it's a stupid metaphor, but if it helps. 

So. Anyway. Coffee. Rich, no nonsense, kinda tastes the same every time you drink it but does have another characteristic with every garnish added. Not everyone's cup of tea, but the temptation to try it? Oh, it's there alright. 

_____________________________________________

On Pete's way home, the chime of the bus stops knocked him out of the daydream realm. As people came onto and off the vehicle he lounged in a window seat from point A to point B since the bus’ schedule ran from across John's apartment complex directly to Pete's block by the riverside. 

Red and amber glows touched through the windows and tinted his bleached mop every few seconds. It crossed his mind that his mother was reluctant to make any good of his white hair at first but as if that was the thing that mattered when, you know, his life plans shattered for the world to see. 

 _Damn. Dark shit_. 

 

The bus came to a halt in front of the building, steam rolling out from the exhaust port. Pete had been the only person on it for a couple stops, too indulged in his strange thoughts to notice the decrease in passengers. 

As well as this he was too tired to greet anybody heading to the elevator, including his new neighbour, making the lift up to level three in silence. Or maybe she wasn't even new. Ah, he doesn't know anybody on his floor to a personal level, doesn't need to anyway. He's just there because he needs to be. 

He can hear sounds emanating from the TV upon unlocking the door and entering the room, something about the mystic death of a Belgian actress that around two people in the whole country are watching. 

Turning in for his bedroom, he spotted an open sock drawer with a corner of plastic limply hanging out from the side. Through closer inspection, a ZipLoc packet of- God, is that weed? 

I mean, Pete wasn't tense at the moment, so smoking the stuff would be wasteful. New York law regulated pot for medical purposes, and going back for more after being given a recent prescription would be heavily suspicious. 

The second thoughts came about when the girl next door turned up her early 2000s EDM pop to a near auditorily threatening level. 

Weed it is.  


	6. Where, When, or How

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess which dumbass sets Pete's kitchen on fire

“JESUS FUCKIN’--! FIRE, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD,” 

Well, that's one way to wake up. Pete certainly didn't remember when or even how he got into bed the night before. It could have been that morning all the same. He took a sip from the glass of water that had been settled by his bedside table for days now. The taste was awful, not to mention last night's hash his mouth still faintly remembers.

Eleven o’ clock sunlight invaded the bedspace. The fact that he'd overslept didn't bother him, any time of day is a bad time in his books. Pete never got the blinds in his room open, simply because it's hard to reach and the light hits all the wrong spots, but somebody forgot to close them last night. Dammit. Combine the blaring fire alarm and the erratic sports commentator on the radio with all he saw and all he tasted, his senses were worth making a mockery of. 

He stumbled out his room, draped in his duvet like a shawl, to find the king of unexpected disasters in his kitchen with genuinely no context added. What he could take away from the image made little sense as well: the fire alarm was activated, a pan was spewing smoke, and John fucking Mulaney was relentlessly thrashing at the small blaze with a tea towel, yelling maniacally. The scene was ridiculous enough to have him question his consciousness, let alone question why this man was setting fire to his kitchen. Eh, he's seen worse. 

“OH GOD, JUST EXTINGUISH, PLEASE, OH MY GOD-- Pete. You're awake.” He cleared his throat, grimacing as the smoke died down and the alarm muted. “Pfft, eggs, y’know? It's, uh, sorry for-- dammit,” he spun around and beat the pan once more. “I know this looks weird, and I probably-”

Rubbing his forehead, he muttered, “John, wait, when… how did you get in here?”

“Emergency contacts. The police gave me a copy of your key. And I figured you'd want to eat before we head off to nowhere.”

“Ah, shit,” Pete muttered, instantly regretting the choice he'd made. To be perfectly fair, the decision was between the paranoid asshole who nearly burnt his apartment down and his mom. No first prizes for guessing who got it. “I'm competent enough to cook, by the way. I'm not a corpse.”

“Well, you're fucking welcome. Oh, and I saw your weed stash. Leaving it scattered on a table, pouring out a baggie with a bong next to it? Tsss, ain't gonna cut it.” 

Pete sniggered from under his duvet, looking like a crackhead ET. “Thanks for the advice, dad. Can you salvage breakfast at all?”

Mulaney peered behind him at the smogged up egg mess, “Barely. But there's a diner a block away.”

___________________________________________________

They wolfed down at a stack of French toast. Although Davidson had been skeptical around this specific cafe since he last ordered there, with there being a spider infestation around the kitchen that made local headlines, his faith was bought back with egg fried bread.

“You’d think this place is shut the day after Christmas, huh?” he mumbled with a mouthful. 

John went in for another slice, “Good point, though you live in a part of the city where all the atheists are exiled to, so religious shit doesn't count.”

“Maybe you're right.”

“Oh, speaking of which,” John rummaged through his satchel bag and pulled out a silver wrapped package. “Forgot to give you this yesterday. Surprise!”

Pete smiled and set down his fork, taking the present. 

“Oh god, thanks, man. Whatever's in this is probably gold and silver compared to your present, I feel pathetic about that. You guys didn't need to do this, but this is… really sweet. Should I open this now or-?”

 His phone vibrated from his hoodie pocket and made that awful patterned noise that lets everyone in the room know he has an iPhone. That one. “Sorry man, just gimme a minute.” 

“Take your time, it's fine,” Mulaney gestured for him to go outside. He rolled up the ends of his sleeves and wiped his mouth.

Was he wrong to agree to this? It wasn't wrong to see Pete's situation as confusing and impulsive, and running away from everything as justifying cowardice. Different people had different ways to cope that suited their personalities and this just happened to be what Pete’s going for. At this point John wasn't even sure why making his mind up seemed such a task. This is fun. This is going to be fun. This is fun already, his wife agrees.

Upon returning to his seat Davidson’s excitable goofy smirk was in place. “You won't believe who called.”

“Probably not. Indulge me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmmmm it's my birthday tomorrow, so here is my gift from me to you (it's lousy ik)


End file.
